Obsolescence
by Wonderstorm
Summary: An epilogue to the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "The Obsolete Man." Faced with the looming terror of death, the Chancellor realizes the folly of the State and desperately searches for his meaning before the end.


**A/N: This was originally started 11/9/17 and finished 11/18/17. The Chancellor's fate at the end of "The Obsolete Man" was never fully resolved, and I liked his character a lot. I tried hard to delve into emotions in this story. Rated T for tyrannical government and death by a firing squad.  
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 **Disclaimer: I don't own the wonderful 1959 Twilight Zone television series, or Rod Serling, but I look up to Rod Serling as a truly talented and brilliant writer. And I'm making no money with this story.**

Obsolescence

The Chancellor stood before the unnaturally hushed crowd. His hands were bound in front of him by a rope. He stared at the rifle butts resting on the ground and the barrels held in the hands of the men who were his solemn executioners. He was allowed to stare. Unlike so many previously condemned obsolescent men and women, the Chancellor did not have a hood over his head. He knew that the State wanted all citizens to be able to see the terror in his eyes as he died.

The juxtaposition of Romney Wordsworth's calm and dignified death and the Chancellor's cowardly plea for life must have shattered the State's confidence in their unassailable power. Wordsworth had been granted an investigation to establish the guilt of his crime; the Chancellor had been granted no such investigation. Wordsworth had been allowed to choose the method of his destruction; the Chancellor had been refused any choice. Wordsworth had been isolated from human contact; the Chancellor stood before a coliseum of thousands. Whether they had made an exception in his case, or whether the State's obsolescence laws had been completely overhauled, he did not know. Perhaps the State believed that the tangible reality of death would inject the fear of the State into people's hearts once again. Not even an official of the State was above obsolescence and public execution.

How he remained standing was a mystery to him. His legs were alternately numb beneath him, then rushing like sand through a sieve, then giving way as though turned to water. At odd moments, sensory feeling would return to his legs, as though they were reminding him that he should flee his imminent demise. He should flee because, after all—

He did not want to die.

But he no longer had a choice in the matter. There had been no months of field investigation in his case. Apparently his successor had been able to write and put into effect laws before he had even returned to work the next morning. In less than twenty-four hours' time, the State had given him his perfunctory formality of a trial and found him to be obsolete. The decree of obsolescence was the final nail in his coffin. Obsolete. He no longer belonged in this world. No one had any use for him anymore, so the State had decided to do away with him. Discard him as easily as a dull blade. Throw him out like a piece of trash.

His breath came out in shuddering gasps. How had he not felt the horrific consequences of the State's decisions before? When his testimony had sent his own parents to their premature deaths, he had felt nothing save for a sadistic satisfaction. When he had painstakingly investigated his sister's life and had discovered her high treason, his anger had been palpable. Yes, he had been helping the State to achieve its glorious purpose by ferreting out the rebels, the unbelievers, the radicals. He had guarded and protected the State for his whole life. The State must survive. The State was before all and above all. The State was life.

But now the State did not care about his life. They had swiftly declared him guilty and condemned him to die. It was merely a routine and necessary procedure to ensure the State's survival. His precious life was not a commodity to be bought and sold, nor a resource to be bled dry. How could he make them understand that fact, when up until yesterday, he had not understood it himself?

He could feel his heart throbbing in his head. He could no longer merit the good graces of the State, no longer cringe before the overlords, no longer plead his hopeless case before deaf ears. But he could die on his feet. Yes, that he could do. If Wordsworth could face death like a man, then he could, too. He could hold onto what shreds of dignity he had left until the end. He could die standing . . . stand . . .

 _But he who stands firm to the end will be saved._

How did he know that phrase? Where had he learned it?

The commanding officer walked over and stood next to the rifle bearers with his hands locked behind his back. The men lifted their rifles, pulled the bolts open, pushed in the bullets with deft thumbs, snapped the bolts closed, and set their rifles down. The time was drawing close now, much too close. The Chancellor's breath dragged out from his lungs. The faces of his executioners and the commanding officer seemed carved from stone. Each and every face that he looked into was impassive. They did not care about him. He had fooled himself in believing that they ever had. How ironic that he had hounded to death the only person who had offered him mercy in his life, even though he had not deserved it. Wordsworth had been right about everything.

His mouth was horribly dry, and he swallowed with difficulty. He could not bear to give his allegiance to an entity which trampled him so carelessly underfoot. His allegiance belonged to a higher authority, One Who would take his allegiance and make it worth something. He wanted to have a worth. To have a purpose. To not be obsolete.

He wanted his life to _mean_ something in the end.

Something that he would be proud to show his mother and his father . . . his father . . . their father . . .

 _Our Father . . ._

Unbidden, the verses from his boyhood learned alongside his sister creeped into his brain, unformed and vague as memories of a dream at first, but soon sharp with clarity and bright with power. He had to gather breath to speak. "Our Father," he croaked. His voice shook so badly that he was sure that no one but himself could hear the words. He coughed hard and tried again. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," he called out.

The faces opposite him were no longer carved from stone. The commanding officer and several of the riflemen stared at him in astonishment. He could see many of his other executioners looking at him with . . . fear? Pity? Longing? He drank in the emotions voraciously, for they were visible reminders to him that he was still alive.

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Amazing! He could have sworn he saw the lips of some of the men moving along with him, silently mouthing the words from memory.

"Give us this day our daily bread." His voice had risen to a shout now. And he was not the only one reciting. Incredibly, he heard his words being spoken by nearby spectators.

"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Could he find forgiveness for his crimes, he wondered? He had a vague recollection that forgiveness was given to those who asked for it.

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." He knew with frenzied terror that he needed to be saved from the evil that was about to overcome him. If there truly was a supernatural Being waiting on the other side, he hoped that such a Being would deign to save an obsolete man.

"For thine is the kingdom!" The words had moved beyond his immediate onlookers—the crowd had taken up the words like a chant. The air rang with the bellows of a hundred voices all around him. It was odd. He knew that intrinsically there was no magic power in the words pouring from his mouth. Yet some insane euphoria had taken hold of him.

"And the power!" He felt hot strength surging in his limbs, only to wane suddenly and be replaced with a weakness so deep that he feared he would collapse. The commanding officer was yelling words at the men that his foggy mind could not absorb. Could it be possible? Two of his would-be executioners were putting aside their rifles, shaking their heads, and stepping out of line!

"And the glory!" Somehow he couldn't properly articulate the words. His sight shimmered before him like waves of heat rising through summer air. He blinked hard to bring his vision into focus, not caring to wipe his face. Would his father and mother be there to greet him? Would he see his sister again? Would that fool of a librarian Wordsworth be waiting? _Was_ there life beyond the grave?

Could he be accepted anew into the sheepfold?

He tried to inhale, but his lungs could not seem to work. The remaining rifles were being lifted up and braced against shoulders, heads were tilted to the side, eyes were looking through the sights, fingers were poised over the triggers. Each preparatory movement sealed his fate like the ringing of a knell. The crowd dissolved before his eyes in a shifting haze and came into focus again with sudden clarity and brightness.

He heard the cacophony of yells and chants all around him . . . he saw the crowd's shifting myriad of colors . . . he felt the wind gently blowing through his hair and the sun warm on his back . . .

"For ever and ever—"

The exploding fusillade of seven rifles resounded around the coliseum. The Chancellor's entire body convulsed violently, and his lifeless body crumpled to the ground.

 _So departs the Chancellor, once an instrument of destruction, now merely a victim of the inhumanity that he himself wrote into law. His has been the briefest of trips through that valley of the shadow that we all must reckon with. He has moved beyond the tyrannies, the terrors, the injustices of this world, beyond even . . . the Twilight Zone._

░The End░

 **Bonus facts of the inspirations behind story details, straight from the author's giant brain!**

1\. There were nine executioners in the beginning of the story. Two of them refused to participate in the execution at the end. Put side by side, the 2 conscientious objectors and the 9 total executioners make 29. The second season of The Twilight Zone had 29 episodes. And seven was the number of days God took to create the world, so seven rifles sent the Chancellor to meet his Maker.

2\. This specific version of the Lord's Prayer, found in Matthew 6:9-15 and Luke 11:2-4 for those of us who don't want to drag out the gargantuan concordance, is not found in any version of the Bible (who knew?). I could have sworn it was from the King James Version, but it actually comes from the United States Book of Common Prayer, 1928 edition. "But he who stands firm to the end will be saved" is the second half of the New International Version of Matthew 10:22, Matthew 24:13, and the second half of Mark 13:13. But the verse I specifically had in mind was Matthew 24:12-13, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." The love of both citizens and government officials in the State had grown cold along with the people. In spite of this, the Chancellor stood firm in his convictions to the end.

3\. I got the idea for the bolt action rifles used in this story from the episode "No Time Like the Past."

4\. I researched details of historical executions by firing squads in the United States for this story and came up with these facts. In 1960, the execution took place at 6:16 AM. In 1977, the execution took place at 8:07 AM. Executions in 1996 and most recently in 2010 both took place shortly after midnight. So all executions took place at midnight or sunrise. Firing squads since 1960 have all used rifles as the execution weapon. All the men to be executed have been restrained in a chair and had a hood put over their heads (and sometimes targets placed over their hearts). Sandbags are piled up behind the executed prisoners to ensure that no bullets will ricochet. A wax bullet is always loaded into one of the rifles so that no executioner will know for certain who fired the fatal shot. To check for certain death, a medical examiner takes the man's pulse and shines a bright light in his eyes. If the pupils shrink, the man is alive. If they don't, the man is dead.

5\. The once . . . now wording from the italicized Rod Serling-ish narrative ending paragraph comes from the end of the episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home." (I used formerly . . . now for the longest time before changing it.) The designs around "The End" are supposed to be reminiscent of both the starry sky at the end of the episodes, and the deliberately indistinct haze from season 1 openings that comes only from being in . . . the Twilight Zone.


End file.
